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I've not noticed that bg's are particularly prone to that, but I would regard it as a flaw and therefore not something that I would try to breed for.
My suspicion is that it's environmentally, rather than genetically influenced, but that said, have noticed that some slight dorsal kinks and bends do seem to go down the generations, so these days, I pay particular attention to fin irregularities when selecting potential breeders.

Time for an update, about a month ago I split the batch between two tanks, approximately half were left in their original aquarium, whilst the others (almost all darks of one variety or another were moved into the tank below. I reasoned that splitting the darks from the rest would make the eventual phenotype counts a bit easier. however, it's now getting to the point where I'm going to have to thin numbers further and move some to a third tank!

not the best photo, but it gives an idea of size & numbers, the tanks being 30" x 18" x 18"

some of the young clearly have inherited a gold marble gene from their father :-

Assuming that Raiko is correct and bg is due to a new single gene, I now have a clear idea of the genetics of the parents :-

The first thing to note is I have a phenomenal number of potential genotypes/phenotypes and sorting them all out is going to be one heck of a job.

to give an idea, here's a photo of some of the fish in the top tank

and some in the tank below :-

None the less I think I'm managing to ID some of them

This I think is D/+ - S/+ - pb/pb -bg/bg

there are also some which I suspect are D/D - bg/bg and were the name "chocolate" not already taken, that's the name I'd choose to give them, these are a mid brown, some have and some don't have stripes, I suspect those without stripes are either S/+ or Sm/+ or both. Some also show signs of pb. For convenience I'm referring to these "Cocoa angels". Since it shows the tail band I guess this must be D/D - S/+ - bg/bg

The colours on all these photos are reasonably true to life, the photo below includes several of these "cocoa" angels, the one bottom left appears to be D/D - S/+ - pb/pb - bg/bg whilst the one directly behind it looks to be D/D - bg/bg

The lighter coloured fish are harder to be sure but I think the fish at the front is Gm/+ - pb/pb - bg/bg, but what of the other two.

As might be expected with such a varied genetic mix, there is considerable variation in growth, some of the darker fish remain very small, and in the last month I've lost about a dozen runts all obviously either D/D or D/g judging by the intensity of their pigmentation.

In general the Bulgarian greens that I've been able to identify seem to be slightly slower growing than many of their siblings, so next split I will attempt to pick those from the rest. In general however growth rate is reasonable, and there seem to be be few health issues/deformities at this stage. I have one smokey veil which appears to have a mild notch deformity behind it's head, and the odd mild fin deformity, but nothing serious.

Without having done accurate counts, what follows is based on my general observations, but it's pretty striking. As you can probably tell from the top photo I have probably in the region of 150 - 200 fish in this batch, in theory this should mean that I have 75 - 100 veiltails. It should also mean that I have somewhere in the region of 35 - 50 Bulgarian greens, and I would guess that I've been able to identify a good half of them. In theory that should mean that there are 20 or so veiltail Bulgarian greens, but so far I've been able to spot just 2. Statistically this number would be highly significant, and would strongly suggest that bg is fairly closely linked to the veiltail gene. If this proves to be the case since no other cases of gene linkage have been shown in angels, it will immediately show that bg is at it's own unique locus. However it requires a careful phenotype count and statistical analysis to be sure.
An alternative possibility would be that a disproportionate number of veiltail Bulgarian greens died early in development. Careful analysis of the numbers may yet prove this to be the case, but in the meantime, I'd strongly advise anyone working with this gene to pay particular attention to it's interaction with veiltail.

and they produced a substantial spawn which went free swimming just over 5 months ago. Over the last few months I have taken some of the non Bulgarian Greens to my shop, and have counted phenotypes of those sold. I have also culled a significant number of runts (just under 50), most of which were simply not growing - the majority of these were black, probably double dark, veiltails. There have also been a small number of deaths again mostly blacks, probably double darks. I Have kept phenotype records for those casualties & sold. Today I carried out the final count of the remaining individuals.

Clearly this pairing could potentially produce a phenomenal number of different phenotypes, so in the interests of my sanity I haven't attempted to identify all of them.

1. I made no attempt to distinguish between ghost (S/+) & non ghost (+/+) individuals, not least because the banding on some of the non ghost silver & blue types wasn't particularly strong to start with, and faded as soon as I put a net into the tanks to sort them!
2. I have made no attempt to distinguish between pinoy & normal black individuals. Although there were many that I could clearly identify as pinoys, I wasn't confident that I could identify them all. Instead I have classed them as either "dark" or "light blacks". In theory Dark should be D/D or D/Gm individuals whilst lights should be D/+. However the presence of smokey, stripeless and Philippine blue mean that I am not 100% confident of all my attributions. There are also a large number (44) where I have classed them as "not known", these are fish that either died or were culled when too small to categorise, but in most cases are probably either D/D or D/Gm.
3. I have classed the Bulgarian greens as either "Olives", "BSP's" or "Whites", as with the blacks I have made no attempt to distinguish between blue and non blue phenotypes, as although many of them were clearly homozygous for pb, trying to sort them on that basis was simply too tricky. -
My observations so far support Raiko's observation that the bg gene removes body pigment, but that darker the body of a fish would be without the bg gene present, the darker it's body will be with the bg gene present.
Initially I thought that the "olives" would correspond to D/D - bg/bg phenotypes, the "whites" to Gm/+ individuals and the "BSP's" to D/+ and D/Gm individuals. However looking at the numbers it seems more likely that Olive's include both D/D and D/Gm individuals. Categorisation is further complicated by the presence of blue, smokey, stripeless and the fact that when stressed (such as when someone is trying to catch and count them) these fish seem to darken.
Finally it's worth noting that depending on mood, it can be very difficult to distinguish between blue ghosts Gm/+ - S/+ - pb/pb and "whites". Indeed there is one fish that I have excluded from the table below as I can't decide if it's Gm/+ - S/+ - V/+ - pb/pb or Gm/+ - S/+ - V/+ - bg/bg or Gm/+ - S/+ - V/+ - pb/pb- bg/bg, my guess is the first.
In short, please treat these figures with a degree of caution :-

Black

Bulgarian Greens

Non blacks

light

Dark

Not known

Smokey

Smokey

Gm/+

Gm/+

Olives

BSP's

White

Blue

Non Blue

Blue

Non blue

veil

43

37

28

1

4

11

14

15

153

Standard fin

20

35

5

35

14

14

18

6

2

10

154

Not known

11

Totals

63

67

44

35

14

15

22

17

16

25

Grand total

174

Blacks

64

Bulgarian Greens

80

Non blacks

One thing which stands out immediately is the almost complete absence of Veiltail Bulgarian Greens, just 1 out of 64 fish (or possibly 2 out of 65 if the one uncounted is included).
One possible explanation would be if there was a disproportionate number of casualties amongst the veiltail Bulgarian Greens, however the number of veiltails overall is, amazingly, exactly 50% (when the one uncounted fish is included).
The proportion of bg fish is slightly below expectations a fraction over 20% compared with the expected 25%, but not enough to suggest a massive die off of bg veiltails.

This pairing should produce 75% black fish, but 25% of those would also be homozygous for bg, which gives a predicted percentage of 56.25% light or dark blacks. The actual observed percentage is 54.72%, but interesting almost 2/3rds of these 66.26% are veiltails. Similarly the percentage of non black veiltails is 54.72%

On the basis of this evidence it therefore seems highly probable that the bg locus is closely linked to the veiltail locus. As the female parent's veiltail gene came from her non bg mother, in this case the veiltail gene appears to be linked to the wildtype allele of bg. As no other known mutation is known to show linkage to veiltail, it's reasonable to conclude that bg occupies a new locus closely linked to the veiltail locus. Obviously further testing is required to verify this.

I intend to try to obtain a second batch from this pair and see if I have a similar scarcity of veiltail bg's.
I also hope to raise the one bg veiltail and pair it to a standard fin fish that's het. for bg. I would expect to get 50:50 ratio of veiltail to standard fin in both bg and non bg offspring. I then propose mating one of the non bg veiltail offspring to a bg/bg partner, and would expect to see mostly Bulgarian greens amongst their veiltail offspring. A long process, but it should prove the linkage.

Further to yesterday's post, I thought it would be helpful to provide photos of the different bg phenotypes that I defined as "white", "BSP" & "Olive". Unfortunately taking photos that accurately reflect the colours is rather tricky, but here goes:-

"White" first of all :-
These are the Gm/+ individuals, some also have smokey and or stripeless.
With these, it's fairly easy to distinguish between the Philippine blues and those that aren't. Raiko has previously used the name "New Platinum" for the combination (Gm/+ or +/g) - pb/pb - bg/bg and it's easy to see why. The most obvious difference being that these fish have red eyes :-

The extent to which the black markings from the Gm gene are expressed can vary, and unusually the fish can fade or lighten them with mood, something not normally seen with Gm. The next three photos show this variation in a fish that also carries smokey, and the smokey pattern can just be discerned if you look closely :-

This I believe may possibly be the only veiltail Bulgarian Green in existence, it too is Gm/+, I don't think it has smokey.

And this is the other possible veiltail, but I'm reasonably confident that it's a blue ghost, the eye stripe being a big giveaway that I couldn't see when I was sorting them yesterday.

Next the "BSP's"
It's not so easy to tell the "blues" from the "non blues" with these, but as with the "whites" those that are homozygous for pb seem to be brighter and whiter, whilst the non pb individuals tend to be yellower, I suspect I may have classed many of the latter as "olives" when doing my phenotype count, not least because the darkness of the fish varies with mood.
Compared to the "Whites" the most obvious difference is the characteristic black dorsal, and to a lesser extent anal fins.

I suspect this first one, and certainly the second and third photos depict D/Gm - pb/pb - bg/bg fish

Finally "Olives"
These are probably the most varied group and hardest to be certain on ID. Any ID's should be taken with a pinch of salt until I've had chance to do more test crosses.
Blues tend to be more metallic and greyer in appearance, whist non blues are much browner. Banding pattern is often partially expressed but can be faded with mood. Smokey seem to make the overall appearance darker. These also seem to be slower growing than their lighter pigmented siblings. Apologies for the quality of some of these photos, but I thought it better to post poor photos which accurately depict the colours than crisper photos which often don't, exposure and position of flash can often make these fish appear much darker or lighter than they do in the flesh.

top fish is a blue "white" the fish directly below it a blue "olive"

A blue olive almost certainly smokey

Not sure about this one, the blue speckles suggest blue, but the brown body suggests otherwise

This is one I classed as "Olive" with a "gold white" behind, but now I'm not so sure

this is a more obvious non blue olive

Finally one of my favourite although still rather small, and viewed at a different angle very dark so I suspect D/D - Sm/+ - pb/pb - bg/bg